Delaware News

Attorney General Biden Calls on Delawareans to Join the Fight Against Prescription Drug Abuse

Department of Justice | Date Posted: Friday, September 28, 2012



Saturday’s Prescription Drug Take Back event provides opportunity to discard unused medication

Wilmington – Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden urged Delawareans to take advantage of statewide Prescription Drug Take Back locations on Saturday, September 29 to safely get rid of their surplus prescription medication. Three locations will be operated by the Attorney General’s Office.

“Prescription drug abuse is dangerous and destructive to families and communities,” Biden said. “But every household has the ability to fight abuse by properly disposing of unused or unwanted medications and keeping those powerful drugs out of the wrong hands.”

On Saturday, the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Unit is operating three collection sites from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.:

• Wilmington: Shipley Manor – 2723 Shipley Road
• Dover: Heritage at Dover – 1203 Walker Road, Dover
• Rehoboth Beach: Beebe Tunnell Cancer Center – 18947 John J. Williams Highway
State, local and federal authorities are operating 26 additional sites throughout Delaware. A full list of collection locations can be found at: http://dhss.delaware.gov/dph/hsp/files/hhdrugtakebacklist.pdf

Though a recent report indicated a slight reduction in prescription drug abuse among young adults, the threat posed by prescription drug abuse remains severe:

• The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that prescriptions for opioids (pain medication such as Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin) dispensed by U.S. retail pharmacies have increased by 60 percent between 2000 and 2010 (from 131 million to 210 million) and have nearly tripled from 1991 to 2010 (from 76 million to 210 million).
• Each day for the past 10 years, about 6,000 Americans start abusing prescription drugs, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Last year, more than 1 in 3 of those Americans were under the age of 18.
• In 2010, about 1 in 12 high school seniors told NIDA researchers that they had abused Vicodin in the past year and 1 in 20 reported taking OxyContin for nonmedical use, which the Institute says makes these drugs among the most frequently abused by teenagers.
• In 2007, for the first time, more people died from accidentally overdosing on prescription drugs than from accidentally overdosing on narcotics like heroin and cocaine. That year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 27,000 Americans died from accidentally overdosing on prescription drugs, or one death every 19 minutes.

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Attorney General Biden Calls on Delawareans to Join the Fight Against Prescription Drug Abuse

Department of Justice | Date Posted: Friday, September 28, 2012



Saturday’s Prescription Drug Take Back event provides opportunity to discard unused medication

Wilmington – Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden urged Delawareans to take advantage of statewide Prescription Drug Take Back locations on Saturday, September 29 to safely get rid of their surplus prescription medication. Three locations will be operated by the Attorney General’s Office.

“Prescription drug abuse is dangerous and destructive to families and communities,” Biden said. “But every household has the ability to fight abuse by properly disposing of unused or unwanted medications and keeping those powerful drugs out of the wrong hands.”

On Saturday, the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Unit is operating three collection sites from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.:

• Wilmington: Shipley Manor – 2723 Shipley Road
• Dover: Heritage at Dover – 1203 Walker Road, Dover
• Rehoboth Beach: Beebe Tunnell Cancer Center – 18947 John J. Williams Highway
State, local and federal authorities are operating 26 additional sites throughout Delaware. A full list of collection locations can be found at: http://dhss.delaware.gov/dph/hsp/files/hhdrugtakebacklist.pdf

Though a recent report indicated a slight reduction in prescription drug abuse among young adults, the threat posed by prescription drug abuse remains severe:

• The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that prescriptions for opioids (pain medication such as Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin) dispensed by U.S. retail pharmacies have increased by 60 percent between 2000 and 2010 (from 131 million to 210 million) and have nearly tripled from 1991 to 2010 (from 76 million to 210 million).
• Each day for the past 10 years, about 6,000 Americans start abusing prescription drugs, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Last year, more than 1 in 3 of those Americans were under the age of 18.
• In 2010, about 1 in 12 high school seniors told NIDA researchers that they had abused Vicodin in the past year and 1 in 20 reported taking OxyContin for nonmedical use, which the Institute says makes these drugs among the most frequently abused by teenagers.
• In 2007, for the first time, more people died from accidentally overdosing on prescription drugs than from accidentally overdosing on narcotics like heroin and cocaine. That year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 27,000 Americans died from accidentally overdosing on prescription drugs, or one death every 19 minutes.

# # #

image_printPrint


Graphic that represents delaware news on a mobile phone

Keep up to date by receiving a daily digest email, around noon, of current news release posts from state agencies on news.delaware.gov.

Here you can subscribe to future news updates.